AT THE FRYE HEARING, THE PEOPLE DEMONSTRATED THE ADMISSIBILITY OF THE RESULTS OF DNA ANALYSIS USING THE STRMIX DNA ANALYSIS PROGRAM (FOURTH DEPT).
The Fourth Department, affirming defendant’s conviction, determined the Frye hearing sufficiently demonstrated the admissibility of the results of DNA analysis using the STRmix DNA analysis program (STRmix program):
… [T]he People introduced evidence that biological samples were recovered from several locations at the scene of the incident and that those samples were analyzed using the STRmix program, which indicated that defendant’s DNA was contained in those samples. Before trial, the People provided defendant with notice of the results of the tests and the program used to conduct them and, at defendant’s request, the court ordered a Frye hearing concerning that program …. The People introduced evidence at the hearing that the STRmix program had been the subject of numerous peer-reviewed journal articles and had been evaluated and approved by the National Institute of Standards and Technology and by the Erie County Central Police Services Forensic Laboratory before it began using the STRmix program. In addition, the People established that the STRmix program was being used by numerous forensic testing agencies and laboratories in New York, California, the United States Army, Australia, and New Zealand, and that it had been approved by the DNA Subcommittee of the New York State Forensic Science Committee. People v Bullard-Daniel, 2022 NY Slip Op 01707, Fourth Dept 3-11-22
Practice Point: The Frye hearing in this case demonstrated the results of the DNA analysis done using the STRmix DNA analysis program constituted admissible evidence.
